Recap:
The 2018-19 Creighton Bluejays have been defined by inconsistency, showing tantalizing glimpses of their potential seemingly as often as they’ve suffered agonizing moments of defeat. In winning five straight games to close the season, they seemed to have turned a corner — they were improved defensively, they were playing tougher, and they had begun closing out the types of tight games they found ways to lose earlier in the season.
Thursday afternoon in the Big East Tourney Quarterfinals, an old nemesis reared its ugly, unwelcome head, cost them a win, and (likely) cost them an NCAA Tournament berth. And it’s a nemesis that goes back a lot further than this year’s team:
Rebounding. Specifically, giving up an offensive rebound that changed the outcome of the game.
This is now the third time in six Big East Tournaments that Creighton has lost a game — all on Quarterfinal Thursday, no less! — where an offensive rebound was the play of the game. I wish that was an exaggeration. It is not.
In 2016 against Seton Hall, they battled to tie the game at 73 with just over a minute left. But with 25 seconds left, Mo Watson threw away the inbounds pass (sound familiar?), the Hall’s Derrick Gordon intercepted it, and after the Jays fouled him, he missed two straight free throws to keep the game tied. And on the free throws, they failed to box out Isaiah Whitehead, who zoomed over and around Geoff Groselle for an offensive rebound on the second miss. He was fouled, made two free throws, and the Pirates escaped.
In 2018 against Providence, they were ahead 59-57 with 37 seconds left. Alpha Diallo drove to the rim on the Friars’ final possession, missed the shot, but got his own rebound — and scored the game-tying basket. Then they won the game in OT.
And yesterday, they rallied to the game at 61, got a defensive stop by forcing Quentin Goodin into a long two-point jumper…and then couldn’t keep Xavier from getting the offensive board. Naji Marshall secured the ball, took a shot from point-blank range, missed…and again, they couldn’t keep Xavier from getting the offensive board. This time, it was Zach Hankins who blasted over and around the Jays’ defenders, tipping it in to give Xavier the lead.
21 seconds remained, and the Jays had two timeouts. They chose not to use them, running a bizarrely lackadaisical possession where they seemed to lack any urgency at all. The shot they wound up attempting? A heavily defended three from Ty-Shon Alexander that was blocked.
Game. Set. Season.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t execute the last play very well,” Greg McDermott said afterward. “We had a play call that just didn’t get executed. When it broke down, I felt like two guys ran at (Davion) and left Ty-Shon, and I thought he had the opportunity for one more pass to Ty-Shon. So I elected not to take the time-out. Obviously, in retrospect, I’d do it different next time.”
Had that final offensive possession gone differently, there’s a completely different narrative. If they tie it and win in OT, or if Alexander’s three wins it in regulation, the story in most circles would be how impressive the Jays were in surviving a tough March battle, how they’d now won six straight, how the young core of the team had jelled at the right time, how the coaching staff had pulled all the right strings to put the team in position to make a run. Instead, you can peruse the Bluejay Underground or social media and see any number of takes about how the Jays faded under the bright lights of a tough March battle, that the five game win streak is irrelevant because they lost the most important one, that the young core isn’t as talented as “sunshine pumpers” think and even if they are, everyone in the Big East has better young players anyway, and that the coaching staff cost the team a win.
As with most things in life, there’s one extreme and the other, and then there’s the reality of the situation somewhere in the middle. That’s true of the season as a whole, and of Thursday’s quarterfinal loss.
Creighton blasted out to a 15-10 lead over a furious first eight minutes that saw so few whistles the first media timeout nearly didn’t happen. Ty-Shon Alexander made his first four shots during that stretch, came up with a steal, and with plays like this going their way, it looked like a good omen:
The Jays’ sophomore duo of Alexander and Mitch Ballock scored 20 of the team’s first 22 points, and CU built their largest lead of the afternoon at the 9:33 mark when they went ahead 22-13. Then their offense went into a prolonged funk, Xavier got loose, and the Musketeers ripped off a 23-7 run to end the half. Creighton made just three of their last 13 shots. They struggled to contain Xavier’s dribble, and when they did, they struggled to stop big man Zach Hankins in the post. He scored six straight at the start of that big run, and then Creighton closed the half with some of the poorest defense they’ve shown in a month or more — Xavier scored the last six points to turn a 30-29 game into a 36-29 halftime advantage, including this atrocious attempt at stopping a dribbling guard.
And after falling behind by 12 midway through the second half, Creighton cut the deficit to 45-43 after a 10-0 run. This time, it was Xavier who went ice cold, going over eight minutes without a field goal. CU had four straight possessions with a chance to either tie the game or cut the deficit to a single point; they went 0-4 from the field and 0-2 from the line on those four possessions. They finally drew even after five consecutive points from Marcus Zegarowski, a three pointer and a jumper that was swatted into the crowd but ruled goaltending.
They tied it again at 52 on a jumper by Alexander, and took the lead when he made the free throw for an old-fashioned three point play:
An 8-0 Xavier run followed, giving them a 61-53 lead and seemingly ending CU’s hopes. But they answered with an 8-1 run of their own to tie the game at 61, starting with a three from Alexander and then another from Ballock:
Then Alexander tied the game on a cold-blooded jumper as the clock ticked under a minute to go. As they had in the first half when the Jays’ sophomore duo scored 20 of the team’s first 22 points, they scored all eight of the team’s points in their late push:
That set up the fateful final two possessions, where a failure to secure a defensive rebound twice and an empty offensive possession ended their time at the 2019 Big East Tournament.
Key Stats:
Creighton goes 3-of-8 at the free throw line, leaving five points on the table in a game decided by two.
Xavier outscored Creighton 38-22 in the paint, getting 22 from Zach Hankins (11-of-15 shooting) and five offensive boards from the grad transfer big man.
Those two stats are telling, and frustrating, because Creighton did a decent job defensively. They held Xavier under a point per possession — in a 67-possession game, they scored 63 — and Musketeer players not named Zach Hankins were 15-of-45 (33%). “We didn’t have an answer for him,” McDermott noted. “His offensive rebounds, it seemed like every one was a back breaker.”
Back breaker, indeed. And with the loss, Creighton will almost certainly play their next game in the NIT — stranger things have happened, and you’re never out until you don’t see your name pop up on Selection Sunday, but it would take a miracle or a mistake. McDermott tried to make his best pitch in the press conference after the game, nonetheless.
“We’re — I think we’re 3-7 when we have — when either Marcus was out or Damien Jefferson was out. Obviously, Damien Jefferson is still not totally back to normal and hasn’t played a lot. 15-7 against a really good schedule on the year. It just depends. It depends if playing a good schedule is going to be rewarded. We played one of the better schedules, top ten schedule in the country, and if that’s important, then we’ll have a shot. If the committee decides that it’s not that important, then we won’t.
I don’t think anybody really knows what this new NET means, how much they’re going to use it. I think everybody had an idea in the past. If your RPI is terrible, you’re probably not getting in. If your RPI’s good, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in, but at least you’re in the conversation. I just don’t know that anybody understands exactly what’s going to happen. So we’ll wait and see. Hope we get in. If we don’t, we’ll give it everything we have in the NIT.”